Synthetic Genomics Inc

One of the most significant scientific breakthroughs in history was the construction of the first synthetic bacterial cell in 2011 by Dr. Craig Venter and his team. They were pioneers in reading genetic code—the ability to sequence and know the order of the base pairs of DNA that make up every living thing. Their breakthroughs in synthetic biology also allow us today to write DNA code. This evolution of progress demonstrated that we and other living things are essentially software and that, with time, we will increasingly be empowered to author our own existence.

Venter and his team co-founded Synthetic Genomics, Inc., in 2005 to use synthetic biology advances to recreate our world’s biological toolkit and improve virtually every aspect of life.

SGI is working on a variety of industrial fronts. In the area of medicine and health they are developing new vaccines and antimicrobials to rapidly and effectively combat new and emerging infectious diseases. SGI and its partners have dramatically improved the speed of DNA sequencing, vaccine design and distributed manufacturing, enabling humanity to respond in real time to serious risks such as pandemics. The SGI team is also working to create humanized pig organs for use in transplants.

In the area of energy, SGI is working to redesign algae to produce high quantities of oils for a variety of uses, including in nutritional supplements and food products, as well as new biofuels.

With biology contending to be the most critical technology of the coming decades, SGI’s formidable toolkit and expansive vision maintains great promise for longer, healthier lives.

[blockquote quote=”Life is a DNA software system. We now have a set of tools that never existed before and can now effectively write the code of life.” source=”Dr. Craig Venter” reverse=”false”]